1. Field of the Invention
The present invention belongs to a technical field of indicator device to be disposed in a driver's side of a vehicle with an automatic transmission.
2. Description of the Related Art
Currently, a part of vehicles equipped with an automatic transmission (AT vehicles) are designed to be selectable between two shift modes: an automatic shift mode adapted to automatically shift between a plurality of gear positions according to a predetermined shift pattern; and a manual shift mode adapted to allow a driver to manually shift between a plurality of gear positions. For example, in this type of vehicles, a shift-lever position includes a P (parking) position, an R (reverse) position and an N (neutral) position, a D (drive) position and an M (manual) position, which correspond, respectively, to P. R, N, D and M gear ranges. After setting the shift lever in the M position, a driver can swingably move the shift lever in a first detection to shift to the next higher gear position or in a second direction to the next lower gear position, within the M gear range.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 10-100725 (hereinafter JP Publication 1) discloses an indicator device for such AT vehicles. This indicator device is installed in an instrument panel in front of a driver's seat to allow a driver seated in the driver' seat to visually check and recognize a selected gear range and a selected gear position, without largely changing a direction of the driver's eyes during driving. More specifically, the indicator device comprises a gear-range indicator section having five alphabet elements arranged vertically and linearly in a one-to-one correspondence with the P, R, N, D and M gear ranges and in this order. The gear-range indicator section is designed to selectively light up one of the four alphabet elements corresponding to the gear range selected under the condition where the auto shift mode is in a selected state. The indicator device further includes a digital indicator arranged below the lowermost alphabet element corresponding to the M gear range and designed to indicate a numeric character representing a gear position selected under the condition where the manual shift mode is in a selected state. This indicator device allows a driver to visually check and recognize each of the gear ranges selected under the condition where the auto shift mode is in the selected state, and the gear position selected under the condition where the manual shift mode is in the selected state.
The indicator device designed to linearly arrange the alphabet elements corresponding to all of the P, R, N, D and M ranges and place the digital indicator below the alphabet element corresponding to the M range, as disclosed in the JP Publication 1, involves a problem about difficulty of layout due to the need for ensuring a relatively large space in the instrument panel. Moreover, the gear-range indicator section having the alphabet elements corresponding to all of the gear ranges causes a problem about increase in production cost due to increase in the number of light-emitters for allowing the individual alphabet elements to be lighted up. Further, the linearly-arranged gear-range indicator section becomes longer due to the increased number of alphabet elements. Thus, when checking the indicator device, a driver has difficulty in recognize the gear range selected under the condition where the auto shift mode is in a selected state or the gear position selected under the condition where the manual shift mode is in a selected state, resulting in poor visibility.